


Blue

by apricityacumen



Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Dora didn't die okay, F/F, Gen, I can't accept that, Rating is subject to change because this will get violent probably
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-25
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-10-04 01:35:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17295179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apricityacumen/pseuds/apricityacumen
Summary: The first thing Dr. Dora Skirth feels is betrayal. Which is so stupid because right now she has much, much bigger things to worry about.“Open it.”The glass canister across the room opens with a sinister hiss. The writhing blue mass within immediately leaps up, falling over itself as it sloshes down onto the floor, and Dora Skirth knows that she is about to die.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr at [simsbyote](https://simsbyote.tumblr.com/)!

The first thing Dr. Dora Skirth feels is betrayal. Which is so _stupid_ because right now she has much, much bigger things to worry about.

“Open it.”

Part of her almost expects Carlton Drake to turn back, to say this was all just a sick joke, to at least tell her that he’s sorry or indicates that in some way he regrets what he’s doing. Instead, he only shakes his head, tells her that she was - _was_ \- one of their best, and leaves her there, frozen, ice gripping her throat as she watches the glass door shut briskly behind him.

Then the glass canister across the room opens with a sinister hiss and Dora Skirth knows that she is about to die.

Betrayal morphs instantly into mind-numbing terror. The writhing blue mass within immediately leaps up, falling over itself as it sloshes down onto the floor, and Dora instinctively shrinks back, heart pounding.

“No! No! No no no!”

Her mind is working overtime, eyes scanning the vicinity for anything she could use to slow its pursuit - desk chairs, tables covered in lab equipment. All useless. Her back slams into the glass wall behind her and she can only stare, wide-eyed, at the creature mere inches away.

Some part of her knows she should have seen this coming a mile away, well before she decided to get Eddie Brock involved. In the year she'd worked at the Life Foundation, she’d learned full well Drake was a man obsessed, so utterly focused on his vision he would do _anything_ to get what he wanted. And she had _admired_ his drive, his ambition, his intelligence, his vision. What Dora hadn’t anticipated was his ruthlessness, his willingness to sacrifice countless human lives for that vision, to eliminate anyone who stood in his way.

Dora thinks about how coldly he looked at Isaac’s blue-stained body, how he had looked at her the same way, and in spite of herself, tears begin to fall.

And then, suddenly, _it_ is upon her, and Dora can’t focus on anything else. Only watch as the symbiote latches itself onto her legs and crawls upwards, curling up to her chest, extending a tendril to look directly into her eyes. Dora chokes back a terrified sob, and with a sickening squelch the creature wraps around her throat, bleeding into her torso, blue stain shrinking until it vanishes.

She stares down at her body with wide eyes, trembling, waiting for the pain to come.

She takes a breath.

Another.

Then- oh _god_.

Dora can feel it now. The creature is moving inside of her, turning her stomach, making it impossible to breathe as it writhes through her lungs, bleeding through every cell. Dora gasps and squeezes her eyes shut, bracing herself against the glass wall, electricity shooting up her spine.

_No no no no no no-_

Her head is spinning. The sensation is unlike anything she’s ever felt. The symbiote is in her stomach and her arms and her chest and her _brain_ and she can _feel_ it, feel every bit of herself in a way that she’s never felt, unnaturally aware of her blood rushing in her veins and her synapses firing in her brain and she feels like she’s going to be sick, and _then-_

**_Relax._ **

The voice that rings out in her mind is clear as day, reverberating in her skull, momentarily halting every other thought. Dora’s eyes snap open in shock.

 **_It will only hurt worse to fight_** _,_ the voice hisses. **_Relax._ **

There's not much more Dora _can_ do, her muscles involuntarily tensing and then releasing, making her lean heavily against the glass. She can't move, she's shaking, tears still stream down her face, but as usual her brain catches up faster than the rest of her.

She is alive.

Her body had not rejected the symbiote.

And now the symbiote is _talking to her._

Despite everything, under her terror Dora finds herself fascinated. All this time, they’d assumed the creatures to be almost mindless, nothing but parasitic alien goo operating on pure instinct alone. Beings that, while vulnerable to loud sound and fire, could theoretically, according to Drake, keep a human alive in almost any condition - even in the vacuum of space.

She thought they’d learned so much about the symbiotes in those short six months they’d studied them, but after hearing that voice rumble in her brain for the first time, Dora realizes with some embarrassment that they did not actually know a goddamn _thing_ about them. 

**_There are many things you did not learn about us, Dora,_ ** it says matter-of-factly, almost smug.

 _How do you know my name?_ is all she can think and the responding laugh sends shivers down her spine.

 **_I know everything about you, Doctor Skirth. Which is why you must cooperate if you wish to survive. You are_ ** **mine** ** _._ **As if to prove its point, Dora's arms suddenly fly behind her, slamming her into the glass wall. She grunts in pain, struggling against the symbiote's grasp, but the creature holds firm.

 **_Relax._ ** It orders again. Dora can feel an anger growing in her chest that does not belong to herself. **_Do not make me say it again._ **

“Or what?” she spits. “You’ll kill me?”

She feels the symbiote bristle at that, but before it has time to respond, an unearthly, high-pitched noise suddenly rings through the glass room.

Dora shrieks, the sound instantly ripping through her. It feels like she’s being torn apart from the inside out, a strange sub-vocal scream echoing through her body, threatening to shatter her like glass. She hardly notices when the door opens and two lab attendants rush in and grab her, too weak to fight as they practically drag her to a nearby cell and dump her on the floor.

When the door slides shut and locks behind her, promptly cutting off the awful sound, Dora gasps, gratefully welcoming the silence. Her ears are ringing and it feels like she can’t breathe properly. Every bit of her body hurts, like a raw, exposed nerve.

As the pain gradually subsides, she realizes what happened and suddenly she’s angry because, _goddammit,_ that was a cheap trick. She should have known, should have realized there would be someone watching, at the ready to either clean up her dead body or - on the off chance symbiosis didn’t kill her immediately - disable the symbiote long enough to cart her away into a vacant observation cell.

Four to six-thousand hertz had never felt so _painful_.

“Cowards,” she croaks out, pushing herself up slowly and rubbing at her forehead. Her head is pounding and after a moment of stillness she realizes she can feel the symbiote as a tight, quivering mass in her chest; the sensation makes her shudder. But her body is once again under her own control, so, doing her best to ignore it, Dora lets her eyes wander. She is alone - the lab attendants must have cleared off as soon as she was safely within the holding cell. The glass prison itself is empty, save for a neatly folded pair of plain white pants and a matching shirt on the floor. She immediately recognizes it as the outfit every other host had worn.

Something inside of her deflates. They very clearly expect her to put it on.

Thoughts bubble up in her mind before she can stop them - _test subject, specimen, guinea pig_ \- making her want to do a combination of laugh and cry and be sick on the floor. But Dora is too practical, logical to a fault, and even trapped in a lab with a deadly alien parasite pulsing in her chest, she knows there is no room for that kind of talk. She quickly shoves aside her fear. Her primary focus should be staying alive. And if that meant putting on their clothes, letting them treat her like an experiment, playing their games until she could find a way out, then by god she would.

So, swallowing her pride, Dora strips herself of her Life Foundation uniform in exchange for the plain white clothes.

As she dresses herself, she becomes acutely aware of the symbiote again, uncurling itself from her chest and spreading up through her shoulders. The sensation makes her shiver. It also makes her intensely curious.

“What are you doing?” she says aloud to the empty air. Her voice echoes back at her in the small room.

The symbiote is quiet for a moment. **_Exploring_** _,_ it answers finally. Dora raises an eyebrow, finishes pulling the shirt on over her head. Part of her hadn’t expected the symbiote to actually respond and the sheer ridiculousness of the response makes her snort.

“Exploring what?” she asks, sitting down carefully against the glass wall. It feels… odd to be talking to something that she cannot physically see or hear, only feel moving faintly inside of her. Dora knows how insane she must look, even to her coworkers - they’d never even known the symbiotes could form conscious thought, much less communicate - but she is well past the point of feeling self-conscious. She’s amazed at how quickly her own terror has diminished, replaced by a strange mixture of caution and curiosity.

 **_You._ ** The symbiote rumbles and again Dora can sense its impatience. **_All humans are different. Some easier than others._ **

“What do you mean by that?”

 **_Enough_** **.** The growl of the symbiote’s voice makes Dora’s hair stand on end, caught off guard again by its abrupt flare of anger. **_I refuse to waste more time on these inane questions. This is getting us nowhere. We must go. Now._ **

“And where are you expecting to go, exactly?” Dora snaps. Her heart is racing again, but this time she refuses to be intimidated. “I hate to break it to you, but we’re sort of trapped in here.”

**_Not if we work together._ **

That statement catches her completely off guard and she blinks. “Work… together…”

 **_You are a good match, Dora. Do not have to fight your body to survive,_** the symbiote explains. **_Escape would be easy if you only let us. We will not die here._ **

“You want me to trust you?”

**_Yes._ **

“Why? Who says that you won’t just, I don't know, jump ship for another host the minute we’re out of here and leave me to die anyway?” That thought hadn’t fully sunk in until she says it out loud, but it really hits her then that the creature currently taking residence in her body, the one she’s been _talking_ to, is a _dangerous alien parasite_ that should most definitely _not be trusted_ , much less unleashed into the outside world.

The symbiote seems almost offended at that. **_Just told you. You are a good match. Would not throw something like that away so soon._ ** She can feel the equivalent of a smile in its voice when it speaks again. **_Could just take your body on my own. But that makes everything so much more difficult. And I like you, Dora. I am giving you the chance to cooperate._ **

Dora shivers. She remembers how easily the symbiote had been able to control her body, slamming her into the wall. She remembers how it had boiled out of Isaac, killing him within seconds of entering his body.

_**Was not a good match. Was not used to humans yet. You are far more complicated than rabbits. Much harder to keep alive. But I’ve gotten the hang of it.** _

She wasn’t sure if that was meant to be humorous or reassuring or both, but the sheer bizarreness of the whole situation once again brings her back down to earth and keeps her from losing it completely. Or maybe she _has_ completely lost her mind and her growing lack of fear is just the first step on her eventual downward spiral.

But then her mind wanders to topics she had purposefully been avoiding and suddenly she’s thinking of her kids. The flare of emotion surprises them both and Dora squeezes her eyes shut, staving off the tears she can feel threatening to form at the corners of her eyes. Part of her feels the symbiote struggling to process this sudden flood of emotion, but the biggest part of her can only picture their tiny hands and faces and smiles and how heartbroken they would be if their mom never came home again.

She clenches her fists. “What do you propose?”

 **_You will cooperate?_ ** The symbiote seems almost surprised at her sudden change of heart.

“Yes.” Dora swallows nervously. “What’s the plan… uh.” She blinks, realizing for the first time that she didn't know the symbiote's name, or if it even had a name to begin with.

The symbiote within her grins. **_I am Havoc. And I will try to make this painless._ **

And before Dora has time to react, the symbiote shoots thin tendrils through the veins of her heart, bringing it to an abrupt standstill, and with a sharp gasp, Dr. Skirth feels herself die.


	2. Chapter 2

Dora does not die.

She feels her heart stop, every muscle in her body freeze, the breath leave her lungs in a pained gasp as she hits the floor, but Dora Skirth is very much still alive.

Dora can feel the symbiote - Havoc - flooding her body, no corner of her untouched by its influence. Without her heart pumping blood and oxygen, she estimates she has less than six minutes of life left before her organs truly shut down. A fresh spike of fear pierces her still heart.

Havoc tsks. **_You still think so little of me?_ **

Dora does the mental equivalent of a shrug, trying not to panic from the fact that she cannot move, cannot breathe, cannot feel her own heart beating. The symbiote chuckles and suddenly she can feel Havoc manually carting blood through her veins, keeping critical organs alive. The sensation makes her stomach turn.

**_Trust, Doctor. Would be pointless to let you die so soon, before we have even begun our escape._ **

She supposes the creature has a point. She would live until the she and Havoc were clear of the Life Foundation, where the symbiote could find a new host, bond with them, and then- What would become of her?

Havoc is suspiciously quiet at that thought, letting her assume the worst.

 **_Does every human overthink this much?_ ** it replies to that thought impatiently. **_Relax. I am working. No time to talk._ **

Dora can feel the symbiote still moving in her torso, under her skin. Then, unexpectedly, the mass inside her breaks apart. The sensation is the strangest one yet, and all at once a large blue chunk of the symbiote flies out of her, skidding across the floor. She stares at it with wide eyes.

 **_There,_ ** says Havoc. It sounds tired, what’s left of it curling in the space under her ribs. **_Much better._ **

_What the hell is that?_

**_Needed a decoy. Used as much of our mass as I could spare._ **

_Gross._ But Dora is a little in awe at the level of planning that must have gone into this escape. How many days had it spent, locked away in containment cells, the bodies of dying hosts, nothing more to do but learn and plan?

Then Dora feels something she doesn’t have the words to describe at first, a sharp, hot pain in her stomach that would have ordinarily made her cry out if she weren’t currently frozen. Her mind is immediately racing and it hits her quickly that she’s _starving_ , ravenously hungry in a way that she’s never experienced.

 **_Needed the extra fuel to make the decoy._ ** Havoc sounds almost apologetic. **_We need to eat. Soon._ **

_Yeah no shit. What do symbiotes even eat?_ Dora thinks frantically. She halfway knows the answer, remembering vividly how previous hosts’ organs were slowly eaten away over a period of mere days, and shudders.

Her question goes unanswered before Havoc can work up the energy to respond as their attention is abruptly pulled towards the voices rising in the hall. A pair of scientists with white lab coats rush into view. “Oh god…” Dora hears one of them say in a hushed whisper at seeing the two of them, lying apparently dead on the floor. “Oh god no…”

“We… we need to call someone-” the other stammers, terrified, before the other interrupts.

“Are you insane? We were _supposed_ to be monitoring Doctor Skirth-”

“She was stable a minute ago!”

Dora almost feels bad for the two of them. Drake would be furious about losing yet _another_ symbiote, especially after-

 _Eddie_. Dora remembers with a start and suddenly she’s flooded with panic and guilt. Eddie had been infected with a dangerous symbiote and, for all she knew, he was dead or worse, and it was all her fault. Havoc feels her sudden spike of panic and swirls around her brain in interest at the mention of another symbiote, soaking up the memories of Dora breaking Eddie into the Life Foundation.

 ** _Who was it? Carrion? Riot?_ ** Havoc asks hopefully. The memory of the inky black symbiote swirling in its canister is pulled from her memory and Havoc groans. **_No. Venom._ **

_Who is Venom?_

**_The Klyntar currently bonded with your Eddie_** , it grumbles. **_Useless sludge._ **

“What’s going on here?”

If Dora could still move, she would have jumped a foot in the air. As it happens, the scientists around her visibly startle. Carlton Drake’s voice echoes down the hall, and the sound of light, quick footsteps approaching stop short next to where they lay, exposed, dead. “What… what have you _done?”_

Dora has chills running up and down her spine at the mere sight of Drake. Less than an hour ago he had tried to kill her. She feels her own fear coupled with emotions she does not recognize - rage, wariness, hunger - and it isn’t until she feels a stirring in her chest that she makes the connection that what she’s feeling is from the _symbiote_.

“Where were you when it left Doctor Skirth’s body? Where was he?” Drake demands, voice bristling with quiet anger.

“I was-”

“ _This_ is the higher life form. You stood by and watched while it died.” He lets out a breath, incredulous. The scientists stare at him with nervous eyes. “The arrogance.”

Drake shakes his head and turns on his heel, shoulders tight and angry. His men have entered the room, looking slightly worse for wear, and he approaches them with measured fury. “Treece, listen to me. After this, we can’t risk killing Brock, not until we find another suitable host. I don’t want to see you again unless you have _Brock_.”

 _He’s still alive,_ is all she can think and immediately Dora feels some measure of relief. She would not be the cause of his death, at the very least.

The lab attendants are quickly moving around her again, calling in the men who would take the host bodies away. One of the scientists pauses for just a moment, glances down.

“I’m so sorry, Dora.”

It’s horrific, she thinks idly, how easily the symbiote can keep her alive while making her look so absolutely dead.

And then they are alone again.

As soon as they leave the room, the hunger within Dora flares. It feels like she hasn’t eaten anything in days, a raw, gnawing, aching hunger that stretches out through her stomach and up to her chest. Tears prick at the corner of her eyes and that tiny sensation makes her realize how much Havoc’s control on her body has begun to slip. She can feel her fingers and her toes and the slightest jump in her chest as her heart slowly begins to pump blood once more.

The door opens and two men stride in. One places the dead symbiote decoy into a canister, where it would be prepared for further study before being incinerated. The other lifts Dora from where she lay on the floor and places her onto a gurney, white sheet covering her body.

Dora’s heart is pounding when she feels the gurney begin to move. She only vaguely knows what would come next, how her body would be taken to the morgue and held there until it could be transported under the cover of night to some far away dumping ground, never to be discovered. Part of her is still waiting anxiously for the inevitable discovery, for the sheet to be ripped off, to be dragged kicking and screaming back to the cell. But the gurney rolls expeditiously through the halls before abruptly jerking to a stop and Dora feels her blood run cold.

They had arrived at the morgue.

Dora doesn’t even dare to breathe as she hears the man’s footsteps turn to leave. Once he was gone, they could make their escape. The morgue wasn’t monitored like every other area of the Life Foundation - what was valuable about dead bodies? - and leaving undetected would be almost as simple as walking out the door.

The symbiote, however, seems to have other ideas.

 **_Hungry._ ** Havoc’s voice suddenly rings out in her head and to her horror she jumps, startled, the sheet covering her fluttering.

The footsteps stop in their tracks. Dora freezes, panic seizing her once more. The footsteps turn slowly, approaching the gurney, hand slowly reaching, lifting the sheet.

Several things happen at once.

Dora feels a force surge forth from her chest. Her arm shoots up, connecting solidly with the man’s face. She hears a pained grunt and a sickening crunch. Her other arm pushes down against the flat surface of the gurney, launching her into the air. Her body twists and she drops down, landing hard on her feet, facing the man with wide eyes. He stares back at her, hand covering his nose, blood running down his chin.

Holy _shit_.

She barely has time to process what just happened before the man in front of her recovers, reaching for the gun at his belt. But Dora is faster, and with one movement of her hand she disarms him, snapping his wrist back with a sharp crack. The man screams, stumbling back in pain. The gun slips from his grasp and clatters to the ground.

“What are you?” the man gasps.

Dora’s legs move her towards him of their own volition, but something is different now. It feels like she is rising up, something controlling her not from the inside but from all around her. She looks down in time to see deep blue tendrils boiling from her chest, wrapping themselves around her torso, her legs, her arms, before they envelop her completely. She sinks into the feeling, her mind hazy, and a different voice rumbles out of her when she speaks again.

 **_“We are Havoc.”_ ** And in one fluid motion, they bite off his head.

The taste of blood and viscera exploding in their mouth sends waves of satisfaction through them and they hungrily rip into the body of the man, devouring every last bit of him. Then, hunger sated, their eyes scan the room, seeing easily in the darkness, quickly locating the door leading outside.

With a bellowing screech, they take off into the night, leaving nothing but a torn white sheet, a bloodstain on the floor, and a door ripped from its hinges in their wake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!! Your comments mean the absolute world to me <3  
> As always, find me on tumblr at [simsbyote](https://simsbyote.tumblr.com)!


	3. Chapter 3

They tear through the forest, bounding through trees, the cool night air whipping past them from the bay.

They are free, running through the night, silent, undetected. The raw, lethal power of this form courses through them and they know in that moment they cannot be touched, harmed, contained ever again. They will kill anyone who tries.

 _Kill_. Dora's brain sluggishly grasps at the word. Something is deeply wrong. But how can anything be _wrong_ , she thinks, when together they are _raw power_ , they are _unstoppable chaos?_ Strength surges through their bond and Dora hazily relishes in the feeling - the feeling of effortlessly flying through the forest, of ripping a steel door off its hinges as if it were nothing, of biting a man's head clean off and letting the hot, metallic blood seep through their mouth and run down their throat-

Like startling awake from a nightmare, Dora’s system suddenly floods with panic. Her mind breaks through the haze and all at once, she is far too aware of the symbiote surrounding her, controlling her, its thoughts clearer than ever now, a constant stream of hunger and bloodlust. Her mind instantly recoils in disgust and terror, fighting violently to reject the symbiote’s hold. Something severs. The blueish blackness around her snaps back like a rubber band and Dora hits the ground hard, rolling several feet before coming to a stop at the base of a tree.

“What the _fuck-_ ” she says hoarsely. She can't stop shivering and she sits up quickly, pushing herself until her back’s against the tree. Her mind is conjuring up nothing but horrific visions of blood and viscera, splattered on the floor, staining her hands, running down her chin. “God we- we bit that guy's _head_ off we just- we just _ate_ somebody-” Dora is stammering, shaking so badly that she can barely speak. She feels like she might be sick.

Immediately she can feel Havoc bubbling under her skin, running through her body in a half-hearted attempt to regain control. She pushes back against it angrily and to her surprise it relents.

**_You are making a big deal out of this._ **

“I am not!” she shouts, nearing a panic worse than when the symbiote had first been set upon her. “We could have just left! Why did you _bite his head off?_ ”

**_Would have died otherwise. Needed food._ **

“ _What?_ Food…?” Dora trails off, horrified. Of course. It was so obvious. All this time, they’d been pumping the hosts full of liquid nutrition, trying to keep them alive as long as possible. But it was the humans _themselves_ that the symbiote needed to consume, and whether that came in the form of devouring the host body from the inside out or ripping another human limb from limb, it didn’t seem to matter. Humans were just… food.

**_You do not need to be afraid, Dora. Would not harm you._ **

“Yeah, well, it’s not _me_ I’m afraid for.” Dora scrubs hard at her temples with a flat palm, eyes screwed shut. What had she done? In her desperate, selfish attempt to survive, she had unleashed a monster into the world. Now countless innocent lives would be lost to its hunger if she didn’t find some way to stop it. Her stomach churns. What if the symbiote hurt her family? Hurt her _children?_

Her heart has begun to race again and Havoc rumbles in confused frustration. **_You care so much for your offspring. Why?_ **

“Why wouldn’t I care about my kids? I love them.” Dora shakes her head. “I love them and I would do anything to protect them. _Anything._ ”

Havoc considers this for a moment, taking in the rush of emotion flooding their system. Then it chuckles. **_Humans are so… weak._ **

“Oh, fuck you,” Dora snaps, surprised at how angry that statement makes her. “If loving my children makes me weak, then I must be the most fragile creature on Earth.”

 **_You care so deeply for other humans_** , Havoc argues. **_Humans you do not even know. Why? We are more powerful than any creature on this planet. We can bring this world to its knees._ **

Dora bristles. “We will do _no_ such thing.”

 **_Said you would cooperate, Dora. And I have been patient for far too long. Stand up._ ** Havoc is creeping up through her arms, rippling under her skin. **_Or I will make you._ **

“Make me how?” she snaps. “You won't hurt me.”

She regrets _that_ statement immediately. Dora’s muscles seize and suddenly she can't move, paralyzed from the neck down. Before she can even blink there's a shifting under her skin, the symbiote pooling up her spine, and a deep blue tendril shoots out from her left shoulder. Two narrow white eyes and a wide mouth filled with jagged, pointed teeth bubble up to face her from the mass, and Dora finds that she is too stunned to be scared now, only staring at the creature with wide eyes.

This thing was certainly capable of biting a man’s head off, no problem.

 **“I grow tired of this pointless struggle,”** it says. Its voice sends chills up her spine. **“You** **_will_ ** **comply, Dora.”**

She grits her teeth, saying nothing, only staring the symbiote down. She's cold, tired, hungry, angry, afraid, but more than anything now, she’s confused. After seeing it like this, she’s more positive than ever that the symbiote could kill her in an instant, easily transfer itself to another, stronger host if it really wanted. Instead, it seems dead set on wasting its energy on convincing her to comply with whatever plan it is so desperate to complete. Because as Dora has come to realize, there's something _more_ here, something bigger than their original plan of escape. The symbiote _wants something_ but she hasn’t the faintest idea of _what._

Havoc recoils slightly and Dora gets the feeling it isn’t quite sure of that anymore either.

“Why me?” she asks quietly.

Havoc seems reluctant to answer. **“Have told you. We are a good match.”**

She shakes her head. “I don't understand. What do you mean I'm a good match? Is it physical? Biological? Mental? What do you _want_ from me?”

 **“You are a strong host, Dora,”** it says, slowly. “ **Previous hosts only afraid, too afraid to truly see everything that we could be. But you are not afraid anymore, are you?”**

Dora remembers vividly the feeling of flying through the forest, feeling the power surge through her, how thrilling that had been to know there was nothing on Earth that could possibly harm her, and she has to admit to herself that no, she _isn’t_ afraid, not of the symbiote, not anymore. She sees what the symbiote meant about what they could be, feels it to her very core, and the matter of the fact is that she might actually _like_ it. And that realization terrifies her more than anything Havoc could do to her.

**“With your intelligence, your conviction, Dora, we could do anything. Riot has abandoned us, Venom is useless, Carrion is dead. We are the last one left to complete the mission.”**

“And what _is_ your mission?” Dora blurts out, finally asking the question she has been too fearful to ask up until this point, because that's the question, isn't it? Havoc’s eyes narrow and Dora’s heart skips a beat.

 **“Same as every planet,”** Havoc says plainly. **“Study the planet’s lifeforms, find their weaknesses, bring back reinforcements. Consume the host world until scouts find a new one. Has been this way for millennia. Will be no different now. All we need is Carlton Drake's rocket.”**

“I see…” Dora says softly. She knows she should feel absolute horror at that, feel grief, anger, fear, _something_. But there is nothing.

For the first time that day, she is completely numb.

She hardly notices Havoc staring at her, waiting for a response, her mind preoccupied by the gravity of the symbiote’s words.

Drake was a fool to believe he could control these creatures, she thinks. They all were. And now humanity would pay the price.

She stares down absently at Havoc simmering at the surface of her skin, a faint sheen of glossy blue bubbling across her arm. The world is going to end. This is happening _now_. She has no way to stop it, instead being a major player in its demise. And for better or worse, to remove herself from that position now would be to remove herself from any sort of active role at all. And Dora can’t stand the thought of that, of being dead or an otherwise helpless bystander, forced to watch as the world crumbled with no power to do anything.

But perhaps if she could play this part, cooperate with this plan, maybe she could live long enough to find some way to stop it after all. She knew the symbiote’s weaknesses. If she could catch it off guard somehow, she might be able to kill it. And if she died in the process, well, at least she would die knowing she did something worthwhile.

She pushes herself to her feet suddenly, warmth and determination flooding her body. Havoc grins eagerly. “ **You have changed your mind then?”**

“You could say that,” she says breathlessly. “But there are some terms I need you to agree to first.”

Havoc considers this. “ **Like what?”**

“First of all, you _will not_ hurt my children. They are not to be involved in this in any way and we will _protect_ them if it comes down to it. Secondly, you will let me say goodbye to them. I won’t go through with this if I can’t at least say goodbye.” Dora takes a measured breath. “And finally, unless we are in immediate danger, you will not intimidate, frighten, harm, kill, or eat anyone else. Understand?”

She gets the feeling the symbiote is humoring her at this point, but her sudden compliance seems to be enough for it. Havoc purrs, sinking back down beneath her skin. **_Agreed_**.

“Okay,” Dora sighs, running a hand through her hair. “Okay. Let’s go then.”

______________________________

Despite the fact that her glasses have been missing since they left the Life Foundation, with Havoc’s aid Dora can see almost as well through the dark forest as if it were broad daylight. She finds herself marveling over and over at how clear and sharp everything is, how the faint light of the moon is enough to illuminate the whole forest, how she can make out trees in the distance without the slightest difficulty.

Havoc has been unusually quiet through their trek, but she can still feel it curled under her skin at the base of her neck, spread out across the back of her shoulders like a blanket. It seems content as a passenger for now, along for the ride as its host makes her way through the woods along a road back into the city, until they’re standing in front of the first 24 hour convenience store she can find.

Dora pauses in front of the door, her reflection in the glass momentarily catching her off guard. She’s a mess, her white clothes wet and stained with dirt and whatever else, her hair sticking up every which way. But she doesn’t have time to dwell on it, pushing the door open with a pleasant jingle. The cashier is young, no older than eighteen, his eyes glued to the screen of a small box television set up behind the counter. When Dora walks in he looks up, startled, and stares at her with wide eyes for a second before recovering.

“Can I help you find anything today?”

The sheer normalcy of the statement makes Dora laugh. The cashier flinches a bit and she clears her throat, doing her best to look unthreatening. “No, no, thank you though. I was actually just, uh, wondering if I could use your phone.”

He sort of stares at her again, shuffling awkwardly. “Well, customers really aren’t supposed to use the store phone. We’ve got a pay phone out front?”

Dora shakes her head. “I don’t have any cash on me. I wouldn’t ask otherwise, but it’s… sort of an emergency.” She gives him her most pleasant smile. "I promise I won’t take long."

The cashier considers her for another second before he shrugs, waving her around the counter into a small back office. “Alright. Just don’t take too long, okay? I’m already on thin ice with the GM and I don’t need him chewing me out again.”

“Thank you so much, I promise I’ll only be a minute,” Dora says gratefully and quickly follows him behind the counter.

The office in question is sparsely furnished with a small filing cabinet, a chair, and an old wooden desk. A corded phone sits on one corner. She closes the office door quietly, punches in the number, and grips the receiver tightly to her ear as it begins to ring.

 _“Skirth residence, this is Abby speaking,”_ says the voice on the other end of the phone. Dora tries to sound normal when she responds.

“Abby? Hi, it’s me, Dora.”

_“Oh! Hey Ms. D, I was just starting to worry about you.”_

“I’m so sorry, Abby. There was uh. There was an accident, at the lab, and I couldn’t call.” 

 _“Oh my god, are you okay?”_ Abby sounds genuinely concerned and Dora smiles in spite of herself. She’d hired a lot of babysitters and nannies throughout her years of balancing work with the responsibilities of being a single mother, but Abby had always been the kindest. Not to mention her kids’ favorite.

“Yes, yes, I’m fine,” Dora reassures her, anxiously rubbing the back of her neck. “I’m just calling because, well, now I won’t be home tonight or tomorrow, and I wanted to see if it would be possible for you to stay the night? I really, really hate to do this to you, Abby, I promise I’ll pay you double.”

 _“Oh don’t worry about it, it’ll be no trouble at all,”_ Abby says cheerfully. _“We’ve had a quiet evening tonight, the kids have been on their best behavior. Speaking of, I was just about to get them to bed, you wanna talk to them?”_

“Yes, please,” Dora says gratefully. “Thank you so much.”

 _“Yeah, of course! Hang on, let me go get them.”_ Abby puts the phone down with a clatter and Dora anxiously curls the phone cord around one finger. A moment passes and the phone is picked up clumsily.

 _“Hi mom!”_ chirps a voice on the other end of the line and Dora’s breath catches in her throat. For a moment she can’t speak. _“Mom? Are you there?”_

“I’m here, Ellie, I’m here, I’m here,” Dora says, trying desperately to keep her voice level. “Is Ben there, too?”

_“He’s here. You’re on the speakerphone.”_

“Good, good.” Dora takes a slow breath, gripping the phone tight against her ear. “I just wanted to tell you both that that you have to be really good for Miss Abby tonight, okay? And go right to bed because I won’t be home to say good night.”

_“Why mommy?”_

The lump in her throat suddenly feels bigger and Dora swallows thickly. “I’m just… really busy, honey. I’ve got a lot of work to do and I’ll be home as soon as I can, okay? I love you both so much.”

_“Love you too mommy!”_

Dora can feel tears stinging at the corners of her eyes and she has to fight to keep her voice even. “I know. Good night honey. Tell Miss Abby I said bye.”

 _“Okay! Bye mom! See you soon! Love you!”_ There’s a click after the chorus of tiny voices and the line goes quiet, and Dora is left standing there, facing the office wall, tears streaming down her face. She puts the phone down slowly and covers her mouth, trying to keep quiet as the first sob bubbles up from her throat.

Immediately Havoc is there, spreading through her chest, steadying her as she leans back against the wall and sinks to the floor. Dora can’t breathe, trying hard to muffle her sobs with the sleeve of her shirt but failing miserably. Everything that’s happened to her in the past 24 hours feels magnified, the weight of it all finally coming down on her. Breaking Eddie Brock into the lab, Drake’s betrayal, bonding with Havoc - it feels like a nightmare she hasn’t quite woken up from and won’t anytime soon.

She doesn’t know how long she sits there, curled against the wall on the floor, but eventually the tears slow and she sits up straight, wiping her eyes. Havoc manifests a tendril from her wrist, curling through her fingers. The small gesture makes Dora stare in shock. She gives the blue ooze a gentle squeeze and watches it melt back into her skin, feeling warmth flooding from the symbiote.

 **_I don’t… understand._ ** Dora can feel Havoc’s bewilderment.

“What don’t you understand?” she asks it quietly, but Havoc turns away from the question, curling tightly in her chest. Dora sighs, pushing herself to her feet. It was time to go.

She slowly opens the door of the office, peering around the doorframe. The cashier isn’t paying attention to her, his eyes glued to the television. Dora glances at the screen and sees the flashing of police lights overlayed with a live newscaster’s voice.

_“…urging everyone to stay indoors and keep their doors and windows locked. From what we can tell from this cell phone footage taken earlier, people calling this thing a ‘monster’ just might be onto something…”_

The camera switches to shaky footage of _something_ inky black and at least 8 feet tall running through the streets before diving into the bay. Dora sucks in a shocked breath at the same moment that Havoc hisses in her mind.

**_Venom._ **

_That’s Venom?_ Dora thinks frantically, watching them replay the video over and over. _I thought you said we didn’t need to worry about him._

**_I had only assumed as much. Looks like he found a strong host, too._ **

Was that... _jealousy_ Dora heard in its voice? She shakes her head. She doesn't quite feel like unpacking that yet.

What _does that mean for us?_

**_We need to get to that rocket quickly, before Venom can. We need to go, now._ **

Dora nods, stepping forward and clearing her throat. The cashier jumps slightly, turning to face her. “Thank you so much for letting me use your phone,” she says, smiling.

“Yeah, no problem.” He watches her skirt around the counter, heading for the door, before calling out. “Hey, wait, it’s not safe out there! There’s a monster or something, ma’am!”

Dora grins, turning back slightly. “I know. So you be safe tonight, okay?”

The cashier nods, staring after her wordlessly.

The bell on the door jingles behind her, and as she runs out into the night, Havoc already enveloping her, their mission is clear in their mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the delay on this chapter, it felt like I was wrestling with it for ages. But I really like how it ended up and I hope you do too!  
> Thank you so much for reading!! Your comments mean the absolute world to me. As always, find me on tumblr at [simsbyote](https://simsbyote.tumblr.com)!


	4. Chapter 4

Humans are fragile, complicated creatures. Havoc learns this almost immediately.

Not like the first creatures the symbiotes were presented with - called _rabbits_ , Havoc would learn later - which were nothing but simple, frightened little animals. Easy prey, useless hosts not worth bonding to for more than a moment. (Though eventually Carrion _had_ grown tired of bonding over and over with the lesser hosts and finally took the rabbit as a host - an imperfect, unsustainable bond to be sure, but the sheer fact that they symbiote’s presence did not kill it instantly seemed to be enough for the observing lab attendants, who began ushering human hosts into the lab by the handful).

No, humans were far stranger than rabbits.

Havoc did not mean to kill its first human host, honest, but it was _starving_ and the man it was presented with, Isaac, was full of delicious organs and chemicals that Havoc couldn’t resist devouring as soon as it made contact. It boiled out of the wasted body of the man within minutes of entering it and slammed against the glass, making the humans observing them jump back.

The next humans Havoc bonds to it tries its best to keep alive, instead scouring their minds for useful information. This was their mission, after all, to scout and learn as much as they could about this world before bringing back reinforcements. Any information gleaned from the thoughts and memories of their hosts would be useful to their cause. Within a few days, Havoc learns all about the creatures that populated the planet, about the humans’ language and lives, their fears and weaknesses.

It tries to make contact with the hosts as well, but there’s something blocking it, a mental connection that refuses to spark. That, coupled with Drake’s extreme, inhumane tests, and the exclusively liquid diet of the hosts, make it impossible to make contact. And Havoc is too desperate, too hungry to stay in one host for too long. It is their nature, to consume, devour, destroy. Within a few days, it has devoured the bodies of two more hosts, all the while still unable to make the proper connections for communication.

But there is still time, Havoc reassures itself. The gathering of such rudimentary information meant at least _some_ progress had already been made, albeit slowly. Besides, granted the symbiotes could still access their hosts’ nervous system, their plan could continue just as well without any sort of real bond.

Then everything suddenly goes downhill very quickly.

It starts when a test performed on Carrion’s host goes sideways, and the lab attendants monitoring Carrion don’t notice when its host’s body finally fails, leaving the symbiote helplessly exposed to the poisonous gasses of Earth’s atmosphere. Havoc watches distantly from their host in an adjacent cell as Carrion’s frantic movements grow sluggish, the yellow mass eventually falling still and silent. _Then_ a second wrinkle in their plan occurs less than twelve hours later, when a stranger breaks in and smashes Venom’s cell wide open, setting off an alarm that, even muffled through the glass, sends waves of agony through Havoc and its host.

The last they see of Venom is its inky black form bleeding into the stranger before he bolts from the room.

And just like that, Havoc is the last one left.

With Carrion dead and Riot and Venom gone AWOL, Havoc becomes desperate to communicate with its host, growing increasingly frustrated. What was _wrong_ with humans? Why couldn’t the connection be made? Havoc knows there was always the option of wiping the host out completely and taking full control of their body, but piloting a host like that was always messy and inefficient, especially in the long term. Just because jumping from host to host was Riot’s preferred method didn’t mean they _all_ had to do it that way.

So Havoc tries again. And again. Tries latching itself to different nerve endings, different areas of the host’s unnecessarily complicated brain. Still there is nothing, and its host continues to deteriorate.

Then, after hours of uninterrupted trial and error, Havoc finally prods the host’s brain with just the right motion, latching onto the auditory cortex of his mind, that a connection between the man’s thoughts and Havoc is finally, _blissfully_ made.

But, as Havoc realizes quickly, it is far too late for the man, his organs corroded and eaten away to the point where death was mere hours away. So far gone, that any communication between host and symbiote was perceived as merely a hallucination brought on by the man’s dying mind. Havoc almost feels sorry for him, and in a small act of mercy it eats his heart - a far quicker death than the slow one by liver failure that would take at least several more hours.

As Havoc is contained again within one of the now familiar glass lab canisters, it reassures itself that there will be more. It understands how to communicate with them now, these fragile and complicated humans, and will do better on the next.

And what a host Havoc is given next.

It recognizes her immediately - how could it not, Dora being one of the principle scientists entrusted with its continued study? It throws itself from the canister as soon as it is released, as eager to bond with her as with its first human host. Her fear is palpable even before Havoc sinks into her body, propelling itself through her stomach, up the brainstem, through to her mind until the proper connection can be made. She fights its hold though Havoc does its best to make her calm down. It wouldn’t do for its host to accidentally injure herself so soon.

 **_Relax,_ ** it hisses and it can feel its host’s panic momentarily broken by the confusion of feeling another voice in her head. Her mind is racing and Havoc watches with interest at the way her mind processes this new development. She is terrified, her system overloaded with panic and fear, yet she still thinks intelligently, rationally, clearly. She is terrified, but she still fights, defiant, at Havoc’s every attempt to exercise control.

Havoc grins. Oh yes, this host would do nicely.

It doesn’t take much convincing on the symbiote’s part for Dora to agree to its plan of escape. Dora instead seems to convince herself, images of tiny humans Havoc comes to realize are her offspring bubbling up in her mind. The flood of emotion at the mental image makes Havoc pause, if only for a moment, before it brings Dora’s heart to a stop.

Havoc can feel Dora's fear as she lies there, paralyzed on the floor, but it dies down quickly this time. Instead, she seems almost impressed at the symbiote’s plan and Havoc could feel only _pride_ at that. It seemed as though she might be beginning to trust the symbiote, if only a little.

She did panic quite a bit when they bit off someone’s head, though.

To be fair, the man would have killed them if Havoc hadn’t intervened. Not to mention, after the energy spent reviving its host from clinical death, they’d needed the fuel that could only be provided by another living thing - a fact Dora seemed _extraordinarily_ unhappy about, even after Havoc tries to explain it to her. And even though she _enjoyed_ it, being _them_ \- Havoc knows this, had felt it - Dora still fights against the thought, fights the potential Havoc can clearly feel, which in turn frustrates Havoc to no end.

It just doesn’t know _why_.

Never before has Havoc felt frustration like this. Havoc tells itself that it is because Dora is a strong, intelligent, compatible host, something seemingly hard to come by on this planet. It tells itself that humans were tricky, that it was too hard, too much effort to find another host this far in the game. But as Dora stares Havoc defiantly in the face without a shred of fear in her body and asks it _why her_ \- Havoc can’t even begin to explain.

How can it explain the _potential_ it sees in the bond between them? How to express how wholly unfamiliar it is with her caring so deeply for others outside herself? In all of its existence, Havoc has never cared as deeply for any creature as Dora does for other humans. And that still stuns it, keeps surprising it, leaving it feeling some confusing, unnatural way. It puts on its show of dominance, bares its teeth, calls Dora weak because it has no other way to describe what it is currently experiencing.

It is not until Dora is breaking down sobbing in some tiny room, her body flooding with that same emotion that Havoc does not understand, cannot begin to know, that it all comes to a head. Havoc doesn’t know what to do, spreading through its host in worry, sliding a tendril along the inside of her hand. It is beyond surprised when Dora takes it, gives Havoc a gentle squeeze instead of flinching away.

All Havoc can say is that it does not understand. It shies away from Dora’s help, confused, vulnerable, because even after everything, after admitting that it was about to destroy her entire world, Dora wants to _help_ it, is still extending _kindness._  The symbiote was used to the fight, the blood and brutality, was used to hosts resisting to the bitter end. But never had Havoc experienced something anywhere close to _sympathy_ from a host.

Perhaps there was more to symbiosis than it had known. All at once Havoc is filled with questions, ideas too taboo for most Klyntar. Who was to say that they could not protect their host instead of destroying them? Why not remain in the same host, maintaining their life for at least a little while, instead of jumping endlessly from host to host? It had heard of Klyntar that had bonded semi-permanently with their hosts, but they were exceedingly few and far between, most preferring the conquest and bloodlust that came with the destruction of worlds.

But Havoc dares to follow the thread of thought even farther. Even if it didn’t decide to take another host, after everything, how could Havoc possibly get Dora to trust it? Their existence was _wrong_ on every level, Dora’s body still fighting to reject Havoc, while Havoc resisted consuming it on accident. Was a bond like that even _possible?_

Then Havoc’s thought process is abruptly interrupted by the sight of Venom on a tiny screen.

The mere sight of Venom makes Havoc bristle. How _dare_ that filth show its face again? Havoc had completely written off Venom as a lost cause, assuming it too weak or cowardly to actually carry out the plan. But Venom was clearly thriving, and both Dora and Havoc are in agreement for once.

They needed to get to that rocket before Venom could.

Dora surrenders herself so quickly, so wholly to Havoc the second time it takes control, Havoc can’t help but feel a surge of… _something_. Pride? Protectiveness? Havoc doesn’t know, but it makes them feel warm.

They run in the direction of the Life Foundation just in time to see the rocket erupt in a deafening explosion of flames, high above them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the delay on this chapter, college is kicking my ass rn. I haven't had the time or motivation to write much lately, so please take this shorter chapter for now ;-; 
> 
> I really wanted to expand upon Havoc's character to hopefully set up some actual relationship development between Havoc and Dora next chapter - and finally get to some actual Venom/Eddie content! I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!! Your comments and kudos mean the absolute world to me. As always, find me on tumblr at [simsbyote](https://simsbyote.tumblr.com/)!


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